If you find ants roaming around your home, chances are it’s because they’re searching for or have found a source of food or water. Depending on species, they may also be building nests inside the walls of your home. Ants may seem to spontaneously appear in many places due to their small size. It’s also because of their size that it may seem difficult to get rid of ants or prevent them from entering your home. Here’s what you need to know about keeping them away.
Daily Prevention Tasks
Ant-proofing techniques can range in difficulty, and the strategies are much the same as the ones homeowners can use to prevent many other kinds of pests. Homeowners should consider implementing these tips from the National Pest Management Association (NPMA) to keep ants at bay:
- Seal cracks and crevices around the home: Ants can use some of the tiniest cracks and holes in walls as entry points, so use a silicone-based caulk to seal any significant gaps and crevices in the exterior walls of your home to prevent ants from moving in.
- Maintain the foundations and seals of your home: Prevent ants from coming indoors by monitoring and replacing weather-stripping. Repair any loose mortar around basement foundations and windows. Keep an eye on baseboards to ensure that ants don’t try to crawl out from behind them.
- Ensure the proper flow of water away from your home: Maintain the functionality of downspouts and gutters so that water flows away from the home’s foundation. Ants love finding water sources and can also crawl through pipes to get inside.
- Keep trees and shrubbery trimmed away from the home: Many plants that touch your home’s walls or roof can be like bridges for ants and other pests to enter your home. Also, keep firewood and mulch away from the walls of your home, as some ants like to build nests in or under dead wood, and that can easily lead them indoors.
- Keep the interior of the house clean: Wipe down countertops, sweep floors, and dust surfaces to remove crumbs and residue from spills. Not only will this clean off leftover granules of food, but it will also clean up the pheromones and scents left by any recent ant trails.
- Store food properly: Place leftovers in sealed, airtight containers, keep opened containers of food shut, and keep ripe fruit in the refrigerator. Store sweet foods properly and keep the outsides of their containers free of sticky residue. This way, ants won’t be tempted to use your pantry as a food source.
- Prevent and fix moisture problems indoors: Routinely check under sinks for areas of moisture, repair any leaky pipes, and clean up standing water puddles.
- Properly dispose of garbage and recycling: Keep garbage in sealed trash cans and regularly remove it from the home. Rinse out recyclable containers before setting them aside for disposal.
- Clean up after pets: Ants like pet food, so keep pet bowls clean and wipe up any spilled food or water around them promptly. Store dry pet food in a sealed plastic container rather than the paper or plastic bags they often come in. Also, make sure that your pets don’t track in messes from outside that could bring in ants or attract them.
Other Forms of Ant Prevention
Of course, not every species of ant is attracted to the same things, and not every type of ant can be easily prevented. Carpenter ants and Argentine ants, for instance, are known to hide and build nests in wooden structures, so what attracts them could be damp or rotting wood around the home that is easily dug out. So make sure that as you’re maintaining your home, you keep an eye out for changes in its structure. Also, acrobat ants and crazy ants are known to have a strange fascination with electronics, so make sure that the spaces around your devices are kept clean.
Dodson Ant Control
Ants can be sneaky little bugs, and if you want to keep them out of your home, we also offer treatment services that will discourage their presence in your home. It’s obviously a good idea to continue maintaining the cleanliness and health in your home environment, but we can help bolster these efforts. We also offer free inspections if you think you might have an ant problem. Contact us today!